We got SCHOOLED!

Last night there was a Tekken gathering at my friend's house. This isn't the first time we gather to play T5, but last night was different. On top of the 4 usual players, we received two more who just so happen to be regulars at Tekkencanada.com. Those two are easily among the top 10 Tekken players in Montreal. Needless to say we got beat down pretty hard, but it was great fun. Last night allowed me to get an idea of how far behind my usual competition is compared to the tournament players, and we aren't so bad. Some of us managed to get some rather impressive wins, and we'd sometimes manage to give a good fight, even in defeat. I managed to force a final round against a tournament Bryan with Jack-5 and I'm proud of that. Nevertheless, MOST of the time, the action boiled down to the two tourney players fighting each other, then the winner would plow through the rest of us and they'd fight again. Seeing this showed me what is probably a golden rule in Tekken 5: When your character is the underdog on paper, AND you're unfamiliar with your opponent's character, AND the player is just plain better than you, you WILL lose a round Perfect.

Overall I'd say I showed the most promise with Marduk, and I have mixed feelings about that. King was my first real main character in Tekken, and I don't like the idea that I'd perform better with a character I started learning afew weeks ago. It's a good thing Marduk is fun as hell to play. I also realized that it's about time I stopped running away from Ling. I haven't played her since Tekken Tag, and I started getting rusty with her somewhere around the time that SoulCalibur 2 died down. Mix that in with the fact that I barely ever played T4, and she can seem really intimidating. I still have plenty of experience with her, so it's not as if knocking off the Ling-rust and integrating two games worth of new tools is more than I can handle... I might even get my Ling up to tournament-quality before anyone else, since she seems to require fewer gambles to win. Ganryu and Wang also look like potential characters I can pick up for casuals. I'll definitely say that last night added TONS of replay value to T5, and it didn't even need it.